Enabling SAML single sign-on

Fastpath: Admin Center > Account > Security > Single sign-on

Zendesk supports enterprise single sign-on access to Zendesk accounts via Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and JSON Web Token (JWT). With SSO, users can sign in once using their company sign-in form to gain access to multiple systems and service providers, including Zendesk products.

As a Zendesk admin, your role consists of enabling the SSO options. This article describes how to enable up to two SAML single sign-on configurations that can be used to authenticate team members (admins and agents, including light agents and contributors), end users, or both.

This article contains the following topics:

• How SAML SSO for Zendesk works
• Requirements for enabling SAML SSO
• Enabling SAML SSO
• Assigning SAML SSO to users
• Managing users in Zendesk after enabling SAML SSO
• Switching authentication methods

The IT team in a company is usually responsible for setting up and managing the company's SAML authentication system. Their role is to implement SSO for Zendesk on the system. Refer the team to the following topic in this article:

• Technical implementation worksheet

Related articles:

• Single sign-on (SSO) options in Zendesk
• Enabling JWT single sign-on
• Allowing multiple sign-in methods for team members and end users

How SAML SSO for Zendesk works

SAML for Zendesk works the way SAML does with all other service providers. A common use case is a company where all user authentication is managed by a corporate authentication system such as Active Directory or LDAP (generically referred to as an identity provider or IdP). Zendesk establishes a trust relationship with the identity provider and allows it to authenticate and sign in users to Zendesk accounts.

A common use case is a user who signs in to their corporate system at the beginning of the work day. Once signed in, they have access to other corporate applications and services (such as email or Zendesk Support) without having to sign in separately to those services.

If a user attempts to sign in directly to a Zendesk account, they are redirected to your SAML server or service for authentication. Once authenticated, the user is redirected back to your Zendesk account and automatically signed in.

Another supported workflow is giving users access to Zendesk after they sign in to your company's website. When a user signs in to the website using their website credentials, the website sends a request to the identity provider to validate the user. The website then sends the provider's response to the SAML server, which forwards it to your Zendesk account, which grants a session to the user.

Requirements for enabling SAML SSO

Meet with the team in your company responsible for the SAML authentication system (usually the IT team) to make sure your company meets the following requirements:

• The company has a SAML server with provisioned users or connected to an identity repository such as Microsoft Active Directory or LDAP. Options include using an in-house SAML server such as OpenAM, or a SAML service such as Okta, OneLogin, or PingIdentity.

• If using an Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) server, forms-based authentication must be enabled. Zendesk does not support Windows Integrated Authentication (WIA). For more information, see Setting up single sign-on using Active Directory with ADFS and SAML.

• Zendesk-bound traffic is over HTTPS, not HTTP.

You'll need the following information to configure a SAML SSO method in Zendesk. Your IT team should be able to provide this to you.

• The remote login URL for your SAML server (sometimes called SAML Single Sign-on URL)
• (Optional) The remote logout URL where Zendesk can redirect users after they sign out of Zendesk
• (Optional) A list of IP ranges to redirect users to the appropriate sign-in option. Users making requests from the specified IP ranges are routed to the remote SAML authentication sign-in form. Users making requests from IP addresses outside the ranges are routed to the normal Zendesk sign-in form. If you don't specify a range, all users are redirected to the remote authentication sign-in form.
• The SHA2 fingerprint of the SAML certificate from your SAML server. X.509 certificates are supported and should be in PEM or DER format, but you'll still need to provide a SHA2 fingerprint for the X.509 certificate. There is no upper limit on the size of the SHA fingerprint.

The IT team may require additional information from Zendesk to configure the SAML implementation. Refer them to the Technical implementation worksheet in this article.

After you've confirmed that you meet the requirements and have all of the necessary information, you're ready to enable SAML SSO.

Enabling SAML SSO

Admins can enable SAML single sign-on only for end users, only for team members (including light agents and contributors), or for both groups. You can create up to two SAML SSO configurations. Before you start, obtain the required information from your company's IT team. See Requirements for enabling SAML SSO.

To enable SAML single sign-on in Zendesk

1. In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Security > Single sign-on.
2. Click Create SSO configuration then select SAML.
3. Enter a unique Configuration name.
4. For SAML SSO URL, enter the remote login URL for your SAML server.
5. Enter the SHA-256 Certificate fingerprint. This is required for us to communicate with your SAML server.
6. (Optional) For Remote logout URL, enter a logout URL where users should be redirected after they sign out of Zendesk.
7. (Optional) For IP ranges, enter a list of IP ranges if you want to redirect users to the appropriate sign-in option.

   Users making requests from the specified IP ranges are routed to the remote SAML authentication sign-in form. Users making requests from IP addresses outside the ranges are routed to the normal Zendesk sign-in form. Don't specify a range if you want all users to be redirected to the remote authentication sign-in form.

8. Click Save.

   By default, enterprise SSO configurations are inactive. You must assign the SSO configuration to users to activate it.

Assigning SAML SSO to users

After creating your SAML SSO configuration, you must activate it by assigning it to end users, team members, or both.

To assign an SSO configuration to team members or end users

1. Open the Security settings for team members or end users.
   • In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Security > Team member authentication.
   • In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Security > End user authentication.
2. If you're assigning an SSO configuration to team members, select External authentication to show the authentication options.

   These options are already displayed for end users.

3. Click the Single sign-on (SSO) option in the External authentication section, then select the name(s) of the SSO configuration(s) you want to use.

   Single sign-on might not cover all use cases, so Zendesk authentication remains active by default. To require users to sign on using the primary SSO method, see To only allow sign-on using SSO authentication.

4. Click Save.

To only allow sign-on using SSO authentication

1. Open the Security settings for team members or end users.
   • In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Security > Team member authentication.
   • In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Security > End user authentication.
2. For How end users/team members sign in, select Redirect to SSO, then click Save.

   

3. In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Security > Advanced.
4. Click the Authentication tab and then select an SSO bypass option.

   You can choose whether only the Account owner or all Admins (including the account owner) can be granted access to the account in case the external sign-in provider goes down.

   

   To gain access, the account owner or an admin requests to receive an email containing a one-time access link. Clicking the link grants the person access to the account. No password is required. See Accessing the account if passwords are disabled.

5. Click Save.

Managing users in Zendesk after enabling SAML SSO

After enabling SAML single sign-on in Zendesk, changes made to users outside Zendesk sync to your Zendesk account. For example, if a user is added to your internal Active Directory or LDAP system, the user is automatically added to your Zendesk account. If a user is deleted in your internal system, the user will no longer be able to sign in to Zendesk However, their account will still exist in Zendesk.

By default, the only user data stored in Zendesk when single-sign on is enabled is the user's given name, surname, and email address. Zendesk does not store passwords. As a result, you should disable any automated email notifications from Zendesk about passwords. See Disabling password notification emails from Zendesk.

To provide a better customer experience, you might want to store more than just the user's name and email address in Zendesk. See Obtaining additional user data.

Disabling password notification emails from Zendesk

When a user is added to a Zendesk account, an automatic email notification may be sent to the user asking them to verify their email address and to create a username and password.

A Zendesk user profile is created for any new user who accesses your Zendesk account through SAML or JWT. Because they're authenticated with a non-Zendesk password, the profile is created without a password because they don't need to sign in to Zendesk. However, by default every new user gets an email notifying them to verify their email address and create a username and password.

To prevent this from happening, make sure to deselect the following options.

1. In Admin Center, click People in the sidebar, then select Configuration > End users.
2. In the Account emails section, deselect Also send a welcome e-mail when a new user is created by an agent or admin
3. In Allow users to change their passwords, deselect this option.

Switching authentication methods

If you use a third-party SSO method to create and authenticate users in Zendesk, then switch to Zendesk authentication, these users will not have a password available for login. To gain access, ask these users to reset their passwords from the Zendesk sign in page.

Technical implementation worksheet

This section is for the team in the company responsible for the company's SAML authentication system. It provides details about the Zendesk SAML SSO implementation.

Topics covered:

• Required user data to identify the user being authenticated
• Configuring the identity provider for Zendesk
• Configuring the SAML server for Zendesk
• Parameters returned to your remote sign-in and sign-out URLs
• Troubleshooting the SAML configuration for Zendesk

Required user data to identify the user being authenticated

When you implement SAML SSO access to Zendesk accounts, you specify certain user data to identify the user being authenticated.

These topics describe the data you need to provide:

• Specifying the user's email address in the SAML subject's NameID
• Specifying two required user attributes in the SAML assertion

Specifying the user's email address in the SAML subject's NameID

Zendesk uses email addresses to uniquely identify users. You should specify the user's email address in the SAML subject's name ID.

For example:

 <saml:Subject>
      <saml:NameID Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:unspecified">[e-mail]</saml:NameID>
      <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer">
        <saml:SubjectConfirmationData NotOnOrAfter="2014-04-23T21:42:47.412Z"/>
      </saml:SubjectConfirmation>
    </saml:Subject>

If the givenname and surname attributes aren't provided, Zendesk will use the username of the email address provided in the <saml:Subject> <saml:NameID> element as the name of the user. The first part of an email address before the '@' symbol is the username.

If the email's username has a period character in it, then we will use it to parse out a first name and last name. If there is no period character, then the whole username becomes the name of the user in Zendesk. For example, if the email address <saml:Subject><saml:NameID> is [e-mail], the user's name in Zendesk would be stored as Stanley Yelnats; however, if the email address is [e-mail], the user name in Zendesk would be stored as Stanleyyelnats.

Specifying two required user attributes in the SAML assertion

If you specify the givenname and surname attributes, you must use the full namespace rather than the friendly names. For example: where the friendly name might be 'surname', the actual value you need to specify for the attribute is http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/surname

Concept	Attribute	Description	Example value
first name	givenname	The given name of this user. You must specify the full namespace for this attribute.	http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/givenname
last name	surname	The surname of this user. A user in Zendesk is created or updated in accordance with this user's given name and surname. See example below. You must specify the full namespace for this attribute.	http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/surname

Given name and surname example:

<saml:Attribute Name="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/givenname">
 <saml:AttributeValue xsi:type="xs:anyType">James</saml:AttributeValue>
 </saml:Attribute>
 <saml:Attribute Name="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/surname">
 <saml:AttributeValue xsi:type="xs:anyType">Dietrich</saml:AttributeValue>
 </saml:Attribute>

Zendesk supports additional user attributes. Talk to your Zendesk Support admin about their data requirements in Support.

Obtaining additional user data

The only user data required by Zendesk from your authentication system is the user's given name, surname, and email address. The given name and surname are the only attribute names you should use to capture information about a user's name. However, you can get more data by asking your IT team to add user attributes to the SAML assertions the identity provider sends to Zendesk when users sign in.

A SAML assertion contains one or more statements about the user. One statement is the authorization decision itself – whether or not the user was granted access. Another statement can consist of attributes describing the signed-in user.

Zendesk supports the following additional user attributes for signed-in users. Define your data requirements in Support, then meet with your IT team to discuss adding user attributes to the SAML assertions. Note that Zendesk only recognizes these additional user attributes if the attribute names outlined in the table below are used in the assertion's attribute statement; if you try to use the full namespace for these attributes, they'll be ignored.

Attribute	Description
organization	Name or id of an organization to add the user to. The external_id attribute of an organization is not supported. If the organization doesn't exist in Zendesk, it won't be created. The user will still be created, but they won't be added to any organization.
organizations	Comma separated values such as org1, org2, org3
organization_id	Example: 134211213
organization_ids	Comma separated values such as 23423433, 234324324, 23432
ou	Name of an organization unit. Specify it as an organization attribute.
phone	A phone number, specified as a string.
tags	Tags to set on the user. The tags will replace any other tags that may exist in the user's profile.
remote_photo_url	URL for a photo to set on the user profile.
locale (for agents) locale_id (for end users)	The locale in Zendesk, specified as a number. To get a list of valid numbers, see Locales in the API docs.
role	The user's role. Can be set to end-user , agent, or admin. Default is end-user.
custom_role_id	Applicable only if the value of the role attribute above is agent. You can get the ids of your custom roles with the Custom Roles API.
external_id	A user id from your system if your users are identified by something other than an email address or if their email addresses are subject to change. Specified as a string.
user_field_<key>	A value for a custom user field in Zendesk Support. See Adding custom fields to users. The <key> is the field key assigned to the custom user field in Zendesk Support. Example: user_field_employee_number where employee_number is the field key in Zendesk. Sending a null value or an empty string in the attribute value will remove any custom field value set in Zendesk Support.

Zendesk also supports a series of InCommon Federation Attributes to set user attributes as part of the sign in. For Federation attributes, you should specify the full namespace with the attribute name, not the friendly name. Examples:

Friendly name	SAML2 formal name
ou (organization unit)	urn:oid:2.5.4.11
displayName	urn:oid:2.16.840.1.113730.3.1.241

Configuring the identity provider for Zendesk

The following attributes are required to specify the identify provider:

Attribute	Value
entityID	https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com
AudienceRestriction	yoursubdomain.zendesk.com

For both values, replace your_subdomain with the Zendesk Support subdomain. If you're unsure of the subdomain, ask your Zendesk admin.

Zendesk enforces the AudienceRestriction attribute.

Configuring the SAML server for Zendesk

Some SAML servers may require the following information when configuring an integration with Zendesk:

• Access Consumer Service (ACS) URL: Specify https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/access/saml (case sensitive), where 'accountname' with your Support subdomain

• Redirects to SAML Single Sign-on URL: Use HTTP POST

• Hashing algorithm (ADFS): Zendesk supports the SHA-2 algorithm when using Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)

Parameters returned to your remote sign-in and sign-out URLs

When redirecting users to your authentication system, Zendesk appends the following parameters to the remote sign-in and remote sign-out URLs.

Remote sign-in URL parameters

Attribute	Description
brand_id	The brand of the Help Center the user was on when they attempted to sign in. For more information, see Creating a Help Center for one of your brands.

Remote sign-out URL parameters

Attribute	Description
email	Email of the user signing out.
external_id	A unique identifier from your system stored in the Zendesk user profile.
brand_id	The brand of the Help Center the user was on when they signed out. For more information, see Creating a Help Center for one of your brands.

If you prefer not to receive email and external id information in the sign-out URL, ask your Zendesk admin to specify blank parameters in the Remote logout URL field in the admin interface. See Enabling SAML SSO. For example: https://www.yourdomain.com/user/signout/?email=&external_id=.

Troubleshooting the SAML configuration for Zendesk

Here is Zendesk's SAML 2.0 metadata:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<EntityDescriptor entityID="https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com" xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:metadata">
    <SPSSODescriptor AuthnRequestsSigned="false" WantAssertionsSigned="true" protocolSupportEnumeration="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:protocol">
        <NameIDFormat>urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress</NameIDFormat>
        <AssertionConsumerService index="1" Binding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" Location="https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/access/saml"/> <!-- Note: replace 'accountname' with your Zendesk subdomain -->
    </SPSSODescriptor>
</EntityDescriptor>

Zendesk expects a SAML assertion that looks as follows:

<samlp:Response xmlns:samlp="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:protocol" ID="s2202bbbb
afa9d270d1c15990b738f4ab36139d463" InResponseTo="_e4a78780-35da-012e-8ea7-005056
9200d8" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2011-03-21T11:22:02Z" Destination="https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/access/saml">
    <saml:Issuer xmlns:saml="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion">myidp.entity.id
    </saml:Issuer>
    <samlp:Status xmlns:samlp="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:protocol">
        <samlp:StatusCode  xmlns:samlp="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:protocol"
Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success">

Note: Replace 'accountname' in the Destination attribute with your Zendesk subdomain.

Zendesk expects user attributes to be specified in an assertion's attribute statement (<saml:AttributeStatement>) as in the following example:

<saml:AttributeStatement>
  <saml:Attribute Name="organization">
    <saml:AttributeValue xsi:type="xs:string">Acme Rockets</saml:AttributeValue>
  </saml:Attribute>
  <saml:Attribute Name="tags">
    <saml:AttributeValue xsi:type="xs:string">tag1 tag2</saml:AttributeValue>
  </saml:Attribute>
  <saml:Attribute Name="phone">
    <saml:AttributeValue xsi:type="xs:string">555-555-1234</saml:AttributeValue>
  </saml:Attribute>
  <saml:Attribute Name="role">
    <saml:AttributeValue xsi:type="xs:string">agent</saml:AttributeValue>
  </saml:Attribute>
  <saml:Attribute Name="custom_role_id">
    <saml:AttributeValue xsi:type="xs:string">12345</saml:AttributeValue>
  </saml:Attribute>
 </saml:AttributeStatement>

For the names and descriptions of the user attributes supported by Zendesk, see the table in Obtaining additional user data above. Note that the full namespace isn't supported for optional user attributes.